Spay

[SuzanneP]

Couple of questions about spaying.

Alliya, my 2 year old dwarf rabbit, is (according to the vet and my own good sense) a SERIOUSLY high strung animal. She has developed bumble foot (sp?) from (best I can tell) frequent thumping in her cage (no wires on the bottom). She seems to be terrified of EVERYTHING – me especially. She calms considerably when held and stroked calmly but she is definately anxious. I recently made her a lovely new house out of those neat idea cubes, which seems to have helped her feel more at ease but having to wrench her out of it twice a day to force feed bubble gum flavored medication doesn’t seem to help with the anxiety. Anyway, she also seems to be marking quite a lot all over the bottom floor of her cage (despite being litter trained) and I had to remove the foam mats that were SOOO cute, from the bottom of the cage because she was chewing them up. Cardboard just isn’t as attractive but I’m sure it’s better for her than foam. Aaaanyway…my determination is that she needs to be spayed – in addition to the obvious reasons.

Does this sound about right to every one else? Will this likely chill her out or does it sound like she is just naturally crazy?

I’m hoping it will help. I just need to save up the money now and maybe get it done in a month or two. My big concern is that this is a rabbit who is hard to corrale, to begin with, and I’m wondering how much extra care she is going to require following major abdominal surgery. I can just imagine her busting a stitch trying to get away from me….or chewing through them or something. For those of you who have had yours done, how much of a pain was the recovery?

 

P.S. Of course, if Petco (I know, I know. Rescue is best….she was just calling to me from that cage)  hadn’t totally lied to me when I got her and just made something up when I asked the gender, I might not be in this mess. They claimed that she was a HE and that HE had been neutered. What a big fat freaking lie!!

Sorry. Just needed to vent.

[JK]

Oh wow I’m sorry you are having such a rough time. I am sure getting her spayed will calm her down. I would do that sooner than later. A rescue in your area might be able to tell you where to get discounted spays. They exist. Sorry I don’t know about the pain. How long have you had her? If you haven’t had her long you need to just be patient. I would suggest using a piece of linoleum on the floor of the cage and a towel or two that can be washed. Of course if she chews the towel don’t use that or even try a grass mat. I wonder if her would do well with another bunny. I’ll let the experts here answer the rest of your questions. Good luck.

[Scarlet_Rose]

Hi Suzanne! Welcome to Binky Bunny!  Wow, what a tough trial this is for you, especially after being mislead.  Eeek.  Yes, the spaying will help the behavior but also as often is with pet store rabbits, they are used to being frightened of people grabbing at them and so really develop a phobia to being held and of humans. Dwarf breeds also are a little more high strung as well and so that doesn’t help things much.  However, there is hop in that area, be gentle, when you go to reach into her cage, gently stroke her head and talk to her.  Does she fight back at you and bite or scratch?  If so, try wearing a glove and gently pressing her head down in submission.

Flooring- We just had a chat about the foam tiles and the same concerns about chewing. When you are talking about her foot, do you mean to say that she has sore hocks?  If so it can be serious, and is the medication (which I assume is antibiotics like Baytril).  You need to be very careful about flooring and sore hocks, something soft that nails can sink into helps and I’ve found that fake sheepskin works best.  Try a layer of linoleum first or coroplast and then fold the fake sheepskin around the edges to secure.  That way it can be pulled off and washed.  Something that can also be done is a layer of straw all over the floor to help with the sore hocks until they are healed up.

Corraling – Incentive such as a treat like a raisin, papaya tablet or Critter Berry for going in the cage will eventually train your rabbit to go in voluntarily and is a trick that is easily learned by them.  Use a key word like “home” or “In” each time and then it will reach the point where you will just need to say the word without herding her in at the same time.

Surgery – Most rabbits who go through surgery often turn from monsters to sweethearts.  For her surgery though she will need a cage that is just one floor to prevent her from jumping up and possibly opening the suture. You’ll also want to provide her a litterbox with a low side too.  Some just set up the pet carrier as a temporary home or litterbox during recovery. She’ll be groggy and so I do not think it will be so bad overall.

I hope this helps and let us know if you have anymore questions.

[SuzanneP]

Thanks, guys, for all the helpful advice.

In answer to the questions, I have had her about a year. She is about the same level of schizo as when I got her.

She does claw and occasionally nip but, actually, once I get her up at my chest and supported or next to me on a solid surface she chills out….unless I am trying to medicate her. Then she really tries to FLY. I had figured out that trick of rubbing her head and stroking her to get her to submit but as soon as I shift my body to get her out, she senses something is up and dashes away to whatever corner is hardest for me to get her from.

Yes, I do believe sore hocks was what she has. I have been medicating her for a week and they seem less red and inflamed. I don’t think the med was Baytril but I assume it’s something similar. At the moment, I have simply lined the bottom and the shelves (because I made them out of the same wiring when I couldn’t find a good piece of wood to use) with cardboard. It’s soft but kind of slidey and, of course she chews it up. I was thinking about layering it with some straw mats. Pretty much ANYTHING I line her cage with (short of the bedding I was using in the old cage – which has to be changed out) she will eat. Almost to the exclusion of her actual food. So, I doubt a fake sheepskin would work. I’m pretty certain she would eat that too.

As to corraling, I meant even just within her cage, but out in the open too. I am afraid of letting her run around a lot becaus, besides the fact that she goes strait for the carpeting, if I need to leave the house in a hurry, it could take 15 minutes to get her back in her cage. She is almost never swayed by treats. She’s not a big eater and definately doesn’t like to take food from anyone directly.

I’m glad to hear that the surgery might help. I’ve thought of getting her a companion but you can’t really be assured she will find one that she could bond with, can you? Anyway, so, I guess it will be back to the old cage when the surgery happens, but for how long, is my question. Obviously the first day but is this something that I will need to keep her in there and tend to her wounds for weeks?

[Scarlet_Rose]

Well after her spay and she is healed if you want to, you can try buny dating at your local rabbit rescue or shelter. She just sounds like a high-strung bun and alos may have acted the way she has because she is in pain from the sore hocks. Slick surfaces actually make it worse and wow her being a chewer doesn’t make it easier to give her soft surfaces. I’m going to have to think a bit on that. What have you tried on her as far as getting her to stop chewing the carpet? A squirt from the water bottle helps, I’ve also used pure lemon oil on the spots but you can also cover those areas with a safe-to-chew item or distract her with something else like a large untreated willow basket to munch on. Rabbtis explore by chewing so it is only natural she does this. I am also wondering if she is exhibiting a behavior known as “cribbing” in horses when they start to chew their envrionment out of boredom. Does she have a lot of toys to play with?

[babybunsmum]

suzanne i feel your pain.  reading your posts reminds me of when baby bun was younger.  i got her from a pet store too and she was similarily high strung and thumpy.  corraling her was an art to say the least.  i have these 1/8″ thick press boards… you know, the kind that are white laminate on one side & brown on the back… that were cut down from a 4’x8′ sheet for mounting art projects on.  i used these to corrale her.  i’d block off an area near her enclosure with them & close in on her while holding 2 other boards so she couldn’t get by me.  lol.  what a sight! 

do you think she would eat the fake sheepskin if it was pulled tight over sign board / cardboard and the ends were tucked under?  i’m thinking if you tryed this plus put a bunch of cardboard pieces on top of it, then she could chew & tear at the cardboard on top which is more accessable & rip-able than smoothed out fake sheepskin.  i know it sounds like a lot of work, but it’s possible if you get her distracted with ‘toy’ cardboard on top of her flooring it may just do the trick.  block & divert is the name of the game i had to play anyways. 

 

[SuzanneP]

I’m not sure that her behavior is from the sore hocks. I think I caught it pretty early. She never seemed to be limping or anything. She just licks the spots occasionally. She was basically always like this.

You may be right about the boredom thing. In her old cage she used to chew her wood house and on her litter box. In general, I have tried to provide her with things to play with but I guess I’m not really sure what it is bunnies do to “play” besides chew on things and throw them about…or explore. So I have given her little wood blocks and grass mats and a straw bed, which she does chew on. Petco and the like have a relatively limited number of play toys for bunnies but maybe I just need to experiment with a few more of them or look into some of the stuff on this site. She just seems to find the cardboard more interesting.

Do you have any specific suggestions (anyone) for things that would be safe for her to chew on and readily available? And for how to arrange them so that she would be interested in them. She seems very attention defecit about this stuff. I’m thinking I need to get her a whole BUNCH of things to keep her from destroying her house. She is already 1/3 of the way through to the bottom of the boxes, in places. Thankfully cardboard is cheap and easy to get but I don’t want her to make it down to the carpet and start shredding it again.

As to the carpet, I realize it’s totally in her nature to graze on shoots of soft things coming up out of the ground. I have not tried the squirt bottle. I figured that would just send her freaking out all over the room and/or leave my house a sopping mess.  I did try to use the trick that someone suggested – using perfume on things they aren’t allowed to chew – on her foam mats and she seemed to just pick another spot. That’s pretty much her MO. If I divert her from one spot, she finds another. Every time I think I have all the bases covered, she finds something else to get into.

It’s very frustrating. I guess I figure the cardboard is the lesser of evils.

She can actually be a very sweet affectionate bunny when she calms down and I am grateful that at least she doesn’t poo or pee anywhere in the house when I let her out, but STILL!

I have thought about bunny dating. How much do shelters/rescues charge for such a service? And is it a super long, intensive thing. I fear that there’s always the chance that I could end up with another neurotic rabbit. Hopefully if they matched her with one for me, though, at least I could be sure they would get along.

But back to the original question, anyone who has had a bunny spayed – what is the recovery like? Long? Gruelling? Difficult to keep them from shredding their stitches? It just seems like it’s going to be really hard to keep that kind of thing from happening.

[SuzanneP]

That might could work. Where does one get fake sheepskin?

[babybunsmum]

i think fake sheepskin could be found in a store that sells car cleaning stuff since they’re good to dry off your car with after a wash.  but maybe there’s a cheaper spot to find them or find bigger ones? 

i’m about to find out what its like to have a bunny spayed for the first time too…  my newly adopted girl pinky will be scheduled soon.  my old lop, baby bun, was never spayed but she did have surgery last november which required stitches.  they used surgical glue to fold her skin together above the stitches so that she couldn’t pull at them.  i had to watch her to be sure that she wouldn’t lick the area & bother it, in which case they would have given her a cone to wear.  fortunately she left the area alone aside from normal grooming.  i imagine after a spay would be similar in that the bun would be on pain meds for a bit and be a little groggier than usual.  hopefully some one else can comment on the spay recovery time & care as it’s possibly different than my experience so far.

as for chew toys… i have had much success with everything that i did NOT have to buy from a store.  mind you, since i’m in canada i haven’t been able to order willow toys from binky bunny which i hear are a big hit with the furry friends!  i give my bun all toilet paper & paper towel tubes, box board from, say, cereal boxes (unfold & then roll up to wedge in cage bars), and cut down corrugated cardboard into ’tiles’ & pile them up.  some one in the toys forum recently posted about a ‘jellyfish’ toy which is a great idea.  they cut long strips of news paper, poked holes thru a piece of cardboard & pulled some newspaper strips through it.  then they hung it some where so bun could run through it & rip paper.  i made a modified lazy version by cutting a folded section of newspaper into strips & hanging it over the cage bars. 

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[Beka27]

as far as the post-op care, i think 9 out of 10 buns (at least on this forum) never bother with the stitches.  many of the vets use the glue stitches now so there’s nothing to really chew.  for a girl the main recovery time is about 48 hours (24 of which they are usually way drugged up and not doing anything at all.)  you want to keep her confined for several days, depending on how she’s doing (maybe 5-7 days.)  most people do see a great improvement in behavior very shortly following the surgery.  the benefits of surgery (both behaviorally and healthwise) outweigh the risk a hundred fold.

some people like to do surgery later in the week so you can be home for the weekend when the recovery is happening… but if you do that, make sure to have a back-up vet if an emergency arises over the weekend, or see if your vet takes emergencies immediately after surgery. 

[Scarlet_Rose]

Fake sheepskin – fabric store, you can buy it by the yard a lot cheaper and I would avoid an auto store.

Bunny dating –

http://ntrs.org/index.html

House Rabbit Resource Network

Houston Bunny Buddies

North Texas Rabbit Sanctuary of Richardson

Spaying questions –

https://binkybunny.com/Default.aspx?tabid=54&view=topic&postid=13556&forumid=6&tpage=2#13954

First-hand advice & assurance: https://binkybunny.com/Default.aspx?tabid=54&forumid=2&tpage=1&view=topic&postid=17164#20010

Toys – Check out the Toy Test Forum.  A phone book is a great rip & tear toy for rabbits as are untreated, unstained, natural willow laundry baskets, I flip them upside down and cut the hand hole larger with a craft saw and place on top of an old towel to catch the pieces that are chewed off so I can just take out the towel & shake it off outside.  I buy the baskets from my local craft store.  A plain brown paper grocery bag works well too.

[SuzanneP]

By fake sheep skin, are we talking chamois? Orangey yellow colored leathery feeling stuff? I’ll definately try the fabric store.

And thanks so much for the list of resources! There’s even one in Austin. I’ll have to check them out and maybe look into getting a companion for little Alliya. Do you know if it’s best to keep dwarves with other dwarves or if it really matters?

[Beka27]

size doesn’t really matter too much when bonding.  the most important thing is how the two get along.  check to see if the rescue allows bunny speed dating where you would take her to meet prospective gentlebuns.  it is usually best (easiest) to bond a male and female… so your first step would be spaying her, then waiting about a month for healing time and hormones to decrease.  bonding sometimes takes weeks, sometimes months, in which time they need to be housed separately.  keep in mind, not every bonding situation will work out, so you also need to be prepared that they may need to be kept separately for the rest of their lives.

here’s a link from HRS about bonding…

http://www.rabbit.org/journal/3-4/two-rabbits.html

[skunklionshow]

I tried to post yesterday…but my connection kept disconnecting.

My evil little netherland dwarf, Jessica, has undergone a spay and an injury recovery.  She was attacked by her cage mate (another female).  She had over a dozen punctuure wounds from the attack.  Her belly was so bad that they thought her abdominal caviety may have been punctured.  She rec’d about a dozen stitches.  She was on cage rest for nearly 3 weeks.  I had to soak and ointment her wounds 2-3x’s a day.  She was on about 3 different meds.   It was awful!  It was so bad, that I really worried about her getting spayed.  The spay recovery was nothing compared to her recovery from her injury.

Post-Spay she spent the night in a bunny meatloaf in her litterbox.  The next day she went back to the vet b/c she wasn’t eating or drinking.  They gave her fluids and taught me how to force feed her critical care.  It was recommended that I modify her cage to a single level for up to a week.  By Day 3-4 she was eating normally and broke through every barrier I put up to keep her to the ground level of her cage. 

Her personality changed overnight.  She regularly attacked me anytime I had to access her cage (pre-surgery).  I have all the scars to prove it.  Now she grunts at me when she gets miffed w/ me, but she doesn’t bite me anymore.  Her litterbox habits have greatly improved as well.  It was the best couple of hundred dollars I ever spent!

I highly recommend any of the willow products on binky’s site.  I have the tunnel and teepee shelter thingy.  Homemade toys are always great too!  In our pet therapy program that’s what our bunnies lived on.  Phone books, cardboard construction tubes (get them from hardware/home improvement stores super cheap), paper towel tubes stuffed w/ newspaper balls or hay & craisins, a digging box (cardboard box filled w/ balled up or shredded paper.  As a treat I sometimes use my paper shredder to shred up clean paper and put it in their bunny igloo or just a cardboard box.  They LOVE that—but it can be messy!  The kids used to ball up paper and fill the construction tube up so they would dig/tunnel through.

The fleece is not the same as chamois cloth.  The fleece is just an artificial sheep fleece–its usually a yellowish tint.  I use cardboard covered in rag rugs.  The rugs are fairly cheap and when they get bored they tend to pull apart the weave.  None of my buns have eaten it, just pulled it apart.  Hope this helps!

[SuzanneP]

Not really that important but Holy Cow! I actually found the right stuff at the fabric store.

The clerk was not terribly interested in helping me figure out what I was looking for, but I found something that looked like the lining on the bottom of her (puppy) carrier and figured it might work. Though it looks more like it should be called fake lambs wool or something. It’s not very skin-like. But anyway, now her cage is all decked out in the stuff – except the bottom floor, which she poops on and I didn’t want it to get all nasty.

I am just crossing my fingers that she doesn’t eat it. I’ve got cardboard pieces strewn about for her to chew on and I bought a TON of chew things at the pet store today to keep her entertained. She dug at the fabric once, earlier, but hasn’t bothered it since. I am hoping this works because she already is getting another red spot on her heel from thumping and the cardboard just seems really harsh to jump on and off of.

Just wanted to share my triumph.

Oh, one more question. Perhaps this is a better one for my vet but does anyone know if they are likely to say she needs to wait to do the spay until the feet heel? I’m thinking if we can get her sedated and/or chilled out after the spay she will stop thumping so much and her feet won’t be so miserable looking….and I can stop the unpleasant antibiotic routine.

[Beka27]

i don’t think having sore hocks should prevent your vet from doing the spay.  you’re right that there is a good chance she’ll chill out afterwards and may stop thumping so much.  that’s a question to ask your vet.

[michellec]

well the surprising thing about these houserabbits is that most of them dont actually live in he house, well they do but not like mine. Fluffee and Sooty live in the house with no cages or restrictions and ar very well behaved, they simply have 2 boxes lined with first of all newspaper then fresh hay which they adore, there food is contained in bowls like dogs have and water dishes the same they have an array of rugs and beds which they sleep in and not a single wire can be noticably seen in this house, To me it sounds like she/he is ready to mate and if this is not an option for you i should advise sadly that you get him neutered, this seems cruel and believe me i had to take they day off work to just be with my partner and pryay both my bunnies would survive and operation but they did and were absolutley fine and very very happy to be able to have the full run ofthe house, ihonestly think your bunny is unhappy at the lack of room or company both human and bunny therefor neutering and more space and company from you will surley help you and him out xmx oh! and i got lied to by pets at home twice and my vet took £80 off me and told me he had neutered my FEMALE bunny (pets t home said he was a he but wasnt the case) she was infact pregnant with 11 happy bunnies!!!!!!!!!!!!

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